10 Weeks and Counting!

Dear Medical Mission Team Members:

In just over 10 weeks from now, we will be packing for our wonderful adventure in Kenya. Between now and then, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes and I’d like to share some of that with you. In this message, I’ll describe the mechanics of the mission. Later on we’ll talk about what kinds of supplies/equipment you might want to bring along. This message will be a bit lengthy, but please bear with me and we’ll get through this together.

As most of you know, this mission is a project of several Rotary clubs in the U.S. and in Nairobi. Due to the widespread prevalence of HIV and AIDS in Kenya, our mobilization partner is a special interest group of Rotarians known as "Rotarians For Fighting AIDS" (RFFA). Other organizations that are supporting the mission through financial assistance, supplies and personnel are HEART, Hope Worldwide, the Coca Cola Africa Foundation, and PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief, which is part of USAID).

In addition to the inbound mission team, we have the assistance of a mission committee in Nairobi, composed of representatives from about 7 Rotary clubs in the Nairobi area, along with the RFFA Country Rep for Kenya, and representatives from HEART, Hope and PEPFAR. They have been meeting every two weeks to prepare for our arrival and I am in frequent communication with them to coordinate our plans.

The focus of the mission is children from birth to about age 21. The mission consists of four teams: a dental team, an optical team, a medical team, and an HIV/AIDS team. You (and I), along with the Kenyan doctors and nurses who will work alongside us, are the medical team. All of the teams will work together in the same location at the same time; however, we will have separate areas within the location and separate responsibilities.

While I have overall responsibility for the mission, Connie Spark (Rotarian from PA) will be leading the dental and optical teams and Malinda Wheeler (Rotarian/nurse from Nairobi, who also represents Hope Worldwide) will be leading the HIV/AIDS team. Peter Sotheran (Rotarian from the U.K.), whom most of you have "met" through online correspondence, will be overseeing the non-medical volunteers.

At the present time, it appears that we will be working in three locations (Mathare, Mukuru and Korogocho), all of which are slum communities within the city of Nairobi. I expect we’ll be approx. 3 days in each place, which will mean that on some evenings, we’ll need to be prepared to pack up and move camp with the help of our non-medical volunteers. That will not affect our hotel accommodations in any way, it just affects where and how we’ll be working during the day. (More about that in a later message.)

Our team will be performing basic physical exams on children. Many of the children we will be seeing have very limited access to healthcare, so we’re likely to see a wide variety of conditions: upper respiratory infections, eye and ear infections, dental abscesses, skin infections, wounds, dysentery, malaria, malnutrition, anemia, and so forth. The children with eye problems will be referred to the eye team; dental problems will be referred to the dental team; suspected cases of HIV/AIDS will be referred to the HIV/AIDS team. Otherwise, our team will treat whatever we can treat onsite. Those who are too ill to be treated onsite will be referred to local pediatricians who have agreed to donate their services for this purpose.

The HIV/AIDS team, commonly known as VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing), probably will have more visibility by way of publicity and general hoopla than the rest of us. That’s not because they’re any more important or necessary than we are. Rather, it’s because there’s a huge ongoing effort in Kenya to encourage people to get tested and treated for HIV. Having VCT onsite with us will be a big incentive for bringing children and young adults to the clinic.

The VCT will be a mostly Kenyan team. They require special certification from the Kenyan government, have specific reporting requirements, and follow a specific program while they’re performing their duties. They have been trained to conduct the HIV testing and have access to anti-retroviral medications for those who test positive. One of our team members, Alexandra Ricca from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, has requested to work with the VCT and I have obtained permission for her to do so.

Unless there’s someone else who specifically wants to work with the VCT, the rest of us will concentrate on the general health of the kids. Toward that end, I have attached a short document outlining the patient flow process. Vickie Winkler (Rotarian/nurse in Nairobi) has devised a patient registration/history form, which she and I are in the process of refining, so that we’ll have at least some basic information on the kids before we see them.

It’s highly likely many more people will come to the clinics than we can reasonably see and treat. In fact, I’m told that in some instances, people will wait in line all night, so crowd control will be an issue. The mission committee on the ground in Nairobi are well aware of that and have plans underway to address it. As well, they are arranging for round-the-clock security at the sites.
No doubt you have some questions at this point, so I will stop here and give you a chance to ask them. When you do, please select REPLY TO ALL so that everyone will be able to see your questions and my replies. Sincere thanks to all of your for being part of this team!

Best regards –
- Sally